The random ruminations of a man on the run–running to win people to Jesus Christ (I also am prone to shamelessly brag on my perfect grandchildren).

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Oh the Slip of the Tongue…

Luke 6:45 (NIV) A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

Someone once wrote: “For good or ill your conversation is your advertisement. Every time you open your mouth you let men look into your mind.”

Most people get that. We know instinctively that our conversation provides a window to our soul. We know that if you listen to a person long enough you will learn what they truly value and what they’re truly like.

The reason I know most people get this is by how hard they work at guarding what they say. Now I know there are a few people who have little or no filters to guard their conversations–their tongues are usually a mile or two ahead of their brains.

But for most people, God bless them, they try hard to say the right thing. They would be horrified to say what they really think. And unless you’re keeping notes, they can get by most days disguising who they really are with trivial conversation that flows like little streamlets after a rain shower—quickly forgotten and leaving no lasting impact.

But oh the lapses: those occasions when, in a moment of passion, you say what you really think; or those times you drop your guard and bare your soul—only to regret it later.

What’s a man or woman to do?

The answer is not to hide or disguise who you really are behind meaningless chatter or hypocritical moralizing. The pressure is too great—eventually the “real” you will slip out.

apple blossum DSCF7557 (Photo credit: hedgerowmobile)

It’s like trying to hide the fact that an apple tree is an apple tree by hanging oranges you brought from the grocery store on it and by clipping every blossom off the tree before it buds into a little apple. In spite of your best efforts the apple tree is still an apple tree and eventually you’re going to get distracted and miss a blossom and—poof!—and an apple will appear.

The answer is changing who the real you is so that you don’t have to be so guarded in what you say.

Like water behind a dam, you can stop it for a while, but eventually the water is going to find a way to keep flowing. The same is true with your conversation—eventually the real you is going to slip through all your filters.

So, why not purify and change the content of your heart so that your conversation becomes a healing, life-giving fount of wisdom and help?

This is where filling your life with whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8) slowly but surely changes the real you into a person worth listening too.

Bottom line, what most people’s conversation needs is not new information; but a new heart—to get that you have to go back to the original Manufacturer.